In recent years, a trend towards electronic trading has become well-established, causing one major exchange after another to replace or at least supplement the traditional open outcry, where a trade is done face to face, with automated, electronic systems which automatically match bids and offers. While the motivation behind using electronic trading may vary from market to market, greater efficiency and volume are some of the considerations.
In particular, subscribing traders are connected to an exchange's electronic trading platform by way of a communication link and through an application program interface to facilitate real-time electronic messaging between themselves and the exchange. The electronic messaging includes market information that is sent from the electronic market to the traders. Market information commonly includes information regarding the inside market and market depth. The inside market is the lowest sell price in the market and the highest buy price in the market at a particular point in time. Market depth refers to quantities available at the inside market and may also refer to quantities available at other prices away from the inside market. The quantity available at a given price level is usually provided by the host exchange in aggregate sums. In other words, a host exchange usually provides the total buy or the total sell quantity available in the market at a particular price level in its data feed. The extent of the market depth available to a trader usually depends on the host exchange. For instance, some host exchanges provide market depth for all or many price levels, while some provide only quantities associated with the inside market, and others may provide no market depth at all. Additionally, host exchange can offer other types of market information such as the last traded price (“LTP”), or the last traded quantity (“LTQ”).
Just as with an open-outcry exchange, an electronic exchange can list any number of tradeable objects. Often times, traders will simultaneously trade more than one tradeable object, and they may simultaneously trade tradeable objects that are listed at more than one exchange. Ordinarily, each tradeable object has its own separate stream of market information. Therefore, in these instances, the traders will generally receive more than one stream of market information such that each stream of market information attempts to characterize a given tradeable object.
Once the traders receive market information, the market information may be displayed to them on their trading screens. Upon viewing the information, traders take certain actions including the actions of sending buy or sell orders to the electronic market, adjusting existing orders, deleting orders, or otherwise managing orders. In general, traders may use trading screens to enter orders into the market, and to obtain and view market information. Traders may also use software tools on their client devices to automate these and additional actions.
To profit in electronic markets, however, market participants must be able to assimilate large amounts of data, including market information, and react to the received data more quickly than other competing market participants. It is therefore desirable to offer user-friendly tools that can assist a market participant in making desirable trades.